DESTINY – FEBRUARY 11, 2023 – 7:30 PM
The Ridgefield Playhouse
OVERTURE TO THE BARBER OF SEVILLE – Gioachino Rossini
Born: February 29, 1792, Pesaro, Italy
Died: November 13, 1868, Passy, Paris, France
World Premiere: Rome on February 20, 1816
Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, percussion, and strings
Duration: About 8 mins
Program Notes: The Barber of Seville is surely one of the most popular operas in the repertory – it ranks fifth on Opera America’s list of the 20 most performed operas in North America. Further, it is a favorite with musicians and singers – its wit, timing and invention have been admired by composers from Beethoven to Richard Strauss. And its overture appears regularly on concert programs, and along with the aria “Largo al factotum” has been parodied in animated cartoons starring Woody Woodpecker, Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and Tom and Jerry.
The truth, however, is that The Barber of Seville or The Useless Precaution was a fiasco at its premiere in Rome on February 20, 1816. The audience hissed and jeered throughout, provoked by supporters of Rossini’s rivals and by the fact that another composer, Giovanni Paisiello, had already written an opera based on the original Beaumarchais play. Further, in the premiere performance several on-stage mishaps embarrassed the singers and interrupted the action.
Topping all this, the overture had nothing to do with the opera, and knowing audience members recognized it as a borrowing from previous Rossini operas. He initially composed the overture for a serious opera, Aureliano in Palmira, premiered in Milan in 1813, and then used it again for Elisabetta, Regina d’Inghilterra, produced in Naples in 1815. The busy composer wrote the entire Barber of Seville in less than three weeks, and pressed for time decided to use this overture a third time.
This time the overture stuck, and became so identified with the Barber that commentators have since tried to identify the episodes of the opera’s plot that it depicts.
The overture begins with a pompous Andante maestoso section to build suspense. After a complete stop, the main section begins, Allegro vivace, which, notwithstanding the overture’s past history, reflects the hilarity and high spirits of the opera and its plot. And, of course, it features the “Rossini crescendo” – the composer’s “fingerprint” of creating excitement with a long repetition of a strain beginning in a whisper and rising to a brilliant tempest of sound
– Willard J. Hertz
CONCERTO FOR PIANO FOUR HANDS – Carl Czerny
Born: February 21, 1791, Vienna, Austria
Died: July 15, 1857, Vienna Austria
World Premiere: Rome on February 20, 1816
Duration: About 35 mins
Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings
Artist Notes: Carl Czerny was an Austrian composer, teacher, and pianist of Czech origin whose vast musical production amounted to over a thousand works. His books of studies for the piano are still widely used in piano teaching. He was one of Ludwig van Beethoven‘s numerous pupils.
Czerny came from a musical family: his grandfather was a violinist at Nymburk, near Prague, and his father, Wenzel, was an oboist, organist and pianist. When Czerny was six months old, his father took a job as a piano teacher at a Polish manor and the family moved to Poland, where they lived until the third partition of Poland prompted the family to return to Vienna in 1795.
As a child prodigy, Czerny began playing piano at age three and composing at age seven. His first piano teacher was his father, who taught him mainly Bach, Haydn and Mozart. He began performing piano recitals in his parents’ home. Czerny made his first public performance in 1800 playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor.
In 1801, Wenzel Krumpholz, a Czech composer and violinist, scheduled a presentation for Czerny at the home of Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven asked Czerny to play his Pathétique Sonata and Adelaide. Beethoven was impressed with the 10-year-old and accepted him as a pupil. Czerny remained under Beethoven’s tutelage until 1804 and sporadically thereafter. He particularly admired Beethoven’s facility at improvisation, his expertise at fingering, the rapidity of his scales and trills, and his restrained demeanour while performing. Czerny’s autobiography and letters give many important references and details of Beethoven during this period. Czerny was the first to report symptoms of Beethoven’s deafness, several years before the matter became public.
Czerny was selected by Beethoven for the premiere of the latter’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in 1806 and, at the age of 21, in February 1812, Czerny gave the Vienna premiere of Beethoven’s “Emperor” Piano Concerto. Czerny wrote that his musical memory enabled him to play all the Beethoven works by heart without exception and, during the years 1804–1805, he used to play these works in this manner at Prince Lichnowsky’s palace once or twice a week, with the Prince calling out only the desired opus numbers. Czerny maintained a relationship with Beethoven throughout his life, and also gave piano lessons to Beethoven’s nephew Carl.
At the age of fifteen, Czerny began a very successful teaching career. Basing his method on the teaching of Beethoven and Muzio Clementi, Czerny taught up to twelve lessons a day in the homes of Viennese nobility. In 1819, the father of Franz Liszt brought his son to Czerny, who recalled: He was a pale, sickly-looking child, who, while playing, swayed about on the stool as if drunk…His playing was…irregular, untidy, confused, and…he threw his fingers quite arbitrarily all over the keyboard. But that notwithstanding, I was astonished at the talent Nature had bestowed upon him. Liszt became Czerny’s most famous pupil. The Liszt family lived in the same street in Vienna as Czerny, who was so impressed by the boy that he taught him free of charge. Liszt was later to repay this confidence by introducing the music of Czerny at many of his Paris recitals.
After 1840, Czerny devoted himself exclusively to composition. He wrote a large number of piano solo exercises for the development of the pianistic technique, designed to cover from the first lessons for children up to the needs of the most advanced virtuoso. Czerny died in Vienna at the age of 66. He never married and had no near relatives. His large fortune he willed to charities (including an institution for the deaf), his housekeeper and the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna, after making provision for the performance of a Requiem mass in his memory.
Czerny composed a very large number of pieces (more than a thousand pieces and up to Op. 861). Czerny’s works include not only piano music (études, nocturnes, sonatas, opera theme arrangements and variations) but also masses and choral music, symphonies, concertos, songs, string quartets and other chamber music. The majority of the pieces called by Czerny “serious music” (masses, choral music, quartets, orchestral and chamber music) remain in unpublished manuscript form and are held by Vienna’s Society for the Friends of Music, to which Czerny (a childless bachelor) willed his estate.
Christina & Michelle Naughton, Piano
“Indeed, I’m ready to put them on a level with some of the greatest piano duos of our time…They have to be heard to be believed” said the Washington Post of Christina and Michelle Naughton. They have captivated audiences throughout the globe with the unity created by their mystical communication, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, in Christina’s own words, “There are times I forget we are two people playing together.” The Naughtons work as a duo was recently recognized in 2019 as they became the first piano duo to receive the Avery Fisher Career Grant presented by Lincoln Center.
Christina and Michelle Naughton’s career was launched in 2009 with a recital debut at Kennedy Center; and an orchestral debut at the Mann Center with the Philadelphia Orchestra, which led the Philadelphia Inquirer to characterize their playing as “paired to perfection”. Subsequently, they began their careers in Europe and Asia; at Munich’s Herkulesaal and with the Hong Kong Philharmonic respectively.
The Naughtons discography features a wide variety of musical styles. Their first album, released on the German label ORFEO in 2012 and recorded in Bremen’s Sendesaal; focuses heavily on traditional Classic and Romantic selections. It was praised by Der Spiegel Magazine for “stand(ing) out with unique harmony, and sing(ing) out with stylistic confidence, and described by ClassicsToday as a “Dynamic Duo Debut.” In February of 2016 they released their debut record on the Warner Classics label titled Visions. The album is comprised of the music of Messiaen, Bach, and Adams and was chosen as “Editor’s Choice” by Gramophone Magazine shortly after its release.
Christina and Michelle have played as soloists with orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, Hawaii, Houston, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Nashville, New Jersey, North Carolina, San Diego, St. Louis, Virginia Symphonies; the Buffalo and Naples Philharmonics, as well as The Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Royal Flemish Philharmonic (Belgium), l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, the Frankfurter Opern-and Museumsorchester, Hamburg Chorus, Kiel Philharmonic, Norddeutsche Philharmonic Rostock, the Netherlands Philharmonic at the Royal Concertgebouw, The Hong Kong Philharmonic, and New Zealand Symphony. Past and future seasons feature collaborations under the batons of conductors such as Stephane Deneve, Edo deWaart, Charles Dutoit, JoAnn Falletta, Giancarlo Guerrero, Emmanuel Krivine, Cristian Macelaru, Andres Orozco-Estrada, and Leonard Slatkin.
Christina and Michelle Naughton are avid recitalists, performing for such notable organizations as Lincoln Center’s Great Performers, New York City’s Naumburg Orchestral Concert Series (Naumburg Bandshell at Central Park), Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Rockefeller Evening Concerts, le Poisson Rouge, Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater (Washington Performing Arts), the National Gallery, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, St Paul’s Schubert Club, Los Angeles’s Walt Disney Hall, Atlanta’s Spivey Hall, Philharmonic Society of Orange County, Chamber Music San Francisco, Houston’s Cullen Theater, Fort Worth Texas’s Cliburn Series, Cornell Concert Series, Boston’s Gardner Museum, Kansas City’s Harriman Jewell Series, the Kravis Center and the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach; and in Europe at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw, Dusseldorf’s Robert Schumann Saal, and Frankfurter Hof.
Frequent guests at festivals around the world, the Naughtons have appeared at American venues such as the La Jolla Music Society, Ravinia Festival, Fortas Chamber Music Festival, Gilmore Festival, Portland Piano International, Grand Tetons Music Festival, and the Virginia Arts Festival. They perform regularly at Germany’s renowned Klavierfestival Ruhr, as well as the Rheingau Musik Festival, Dresden’s Musikfestpiele, Kissinger Sommer, Bremen Music Festival, France’s La Roque d’Antheron Festival (Parc Du Chateau de Florans), Annecy Classic Festival (Bonlieu Scene Nationale) Nohant Festival Chopin, Festival Berlioz La Cote de Saint Andre, Zurich’s Tonhalle, and Prague’s Strings of Autumn Festival. The Naughtons have also undertaken several international tours, including to Germany, China, Brazil, Chilie, Mexico, Portugal and Spain.
Born in Princeton, New Jersey to parents of European and Chinese descent; Christina and Michelle are graduates of the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music, where they were each awarded the Festorazzi Prize. They are Steinway Artists and currently reside in New York Cit
SYMPHONY NO. 5 IN C MINOR, OP. 67 – Ludwig van Beethoven
Born: 1770, Bonn, Germany
Died: 1827, Vienna, Austria
Composed/Premiere: 1804-1808 / 1808, Theater an der Wien, Vienna, Austria
Instrumentation: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings
Duration: About 35 mins
Program Notes: “This symphony invariably wields its power over men of every age like those great phenomena of nature …[it] … will be heard in future centuries, as long as music and the world exist.” –Robert Schumann on Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is arguably one of the most iconic pieces of classical music ever composed, as well as one of the most iconoclastic. It has also come to represent the very essence of classical music itself. Music lovers know it backwards and forwards, and even those who have never attended an orchestra concert nonetheless recognize the opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth, as it is informally known, immediately.
Since the Fifth’s premiere on a cold December night in Vienna, it has become a lens through which we have viewed music, society, and culture. Early audiences heard in its notes an exhortation of victory and triumph, whether literal or of a more internal, personal kind. As the 19th century progressed, Beethoven’s music, particularly the symphonies, became the standard against which every subsequent composer’s music was measured. During World War II, the Allies used the famous four-note opening as a signal in radio broadcasts of victory over the Axis powers. The Fifth Symphony also became an unforgettable part of the 1970s with Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band’s disco version, “A Fifth of Beethoven.”
Beethoven supposedly likened the four opening notes to the hand of Fate knocking at the door. In all likelihood, however, this description was fabricated by Anton Schindler, one of Beethoven’s early biographers, known both for his poor memory and his penchant for invention. Whether a representation of Fate or not, these four notes are the rhythmic seed from which the rest of the symphony develops. The short da-da-da-DA fragment recurs in each movement, as a unifying device. Beethoven, who left few clues as to his compositional process for the Fifth Symphony, did mention the creation of a theme that “begins in my head the working-out in breadth, height, and depth. Since I am aware of what I want, the fundamental idea never leaves me. It mounts, it grows. I see before my mind the picture in its whole extent, as if in a single grasp.”
Beethoven conducted the Fifth’s premiere on December 22, 1808, as part of a massive concert that also included the Sixth Symphony and the Piano Concerto No. 4. Count Franz von Oppersdorff commissioned the Fifth, as he had the Fourth Symphony, and paid Beethoven a substantial sum for each work. Despite Oppersdorff’s generous benefaction, Beethoven eventually dedicated the Fifth Symphony to Prince Franz Joseph Lobkowitz and Count Andreas Kyrillovitsch Razumovsky, patrons with whom he had a longer, more substantial relationship.
At the premiere, in addition to the two symphonies and the piano concerto, Beethoven also presented his Choral Fantasy, plus the concert aria “Ah, perfido,” and the “Gloria” and “Sanctus” sections from the Mass in C Major. The resulting four-hour concert challenged the endurance of even the most ardent Beethoven fans. To make matters worse, the orchestra was badly under-rehearsed and the hall spottily heated. Composer Johann Friedrich Reichardt, who attended the premiere, later wrote, “There we sat from 6:30 till 10:30, in the most bitter cold, and found by experience that one might have too much even of a good thing.”
The Fifth Symphony generated little comment at its premiere, but, 18 months later, composer and critic E. T. A. Hoffmann wrote a lengthy review, in which he called it “one of the most important works of the master whose stature as a first-rate instrumental composer probably no one will now dispute … the instrumental music of Beethoven open[s] the realm of the colossal and the immeasurable for us.”
– Elizabeth Schwartz (Schwartz is a free-lance writer, musician, and music historian based in Portland. In addition to annotating programs for the Oregon Symphony, Chamber Music Northwest, and other arts organizations around country, she has contributed to the nationally syndicated radio program “Performance Today,” produced by American Public Media.)